66 Selected Articles, 
It is much more probable that it consists of a species of ether 
of which we do not know the acid." 
The uncertainty which hung over this substance, from the 
want of knowledge as to its exact atomic composition, is now 
happily cleared away by the following memoir. 
Translator. 
MEMOIR, 
Upon a new Alcohol, and upon the etherial products which proceed from it. 
Read at the Royal Academy of Sciences, JSov. 3d, 1834, by Dumas & Pkli- 
got. 
Spirit of wood exists in solution in the aqueous part of the 
products of the distillation of wood. This last being decanted 
in order to separate it from the undissolved tar, it is sub- 
mitted finally to distillation in manufactories, to extract from 
it, at least in part, the tar which it held in solution. It is in 
the first products of this distillation that you must seek the 
spirit of wood. 
Collect, then, the first ten quarts proceeding from each 
hundred quarts of liquid subjected to distillation, and sub- 
mit this impure product to repeated rectifications, in the man- 
ner you would concentrate alcohol. As the boiling point of 
spirit of wood is very low, these rectifications may be made 
in a water bath, and you can in this way deprive it of nearly 
all foreign substances. 
Pure spirit of wood is a very fluid, colourless liquid, hav- 
ing a peculiar odour, which is at the same time alcoholic, 
aromatic, and resembling that of acetic ether ; it burns with 
a flame similar to that of common alcohol ; it boils at 66° C. 
under the pressure of 0.701. Its specific gravity 0.798 at the 
temperature of 20° C; that of its vapour is 1.120. Its com- 
position is represented by C 4 H 4 ,H 4 3 . 
Thus each volume of spirit of wood comprehends one 
volume of carbon, two of hydrogen, and one-half of oxygen. 
METHYLENE. 
It is thus Messrs. Dumas and Peligot name carburetted 
